


Survivor's Guilt

by AnAuthorByAnyOtherName



Series: Immunity Series [2]
Category: Left 4 Dead (Video Games)
Genre: CEDA (Left 4 Dead), Game: Left 4 Dead 2, Gen, Green Flu (Left 4 Dead), Hunter (Left 4 Dead) - Freeform, I wrote this in 2012 and dear god I am still writing it, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-01-13 00:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21235280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnAuthorByAnyOtherName/pseuds/AnAuthorByAnyOtherName
Summary: The sequel to Acts of Mercy. When Marcy and Denver are separated by the military, the two must use their wits and skills to survive and find each other once again. Can Marcy escape the lab she's confined to? Can Denver conceal his Hunter nature from other survivors? Challenges are faced, enemies are made, friends are found in strange places, and, above all, guilt is considered.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer #1:  
I dunno if any of you hotshots over at Valve are reading this (O hai Gaben!) but please note that I am a poor bastard who has nothing better to do than to write fanfiction. I highly doubt that anyone will offer me money for this, so please do not sue me in all of your Valve omnipotency. I am only writing my interpretation of the storyline of Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, and do not claim ownership, or copyright/marketability over any characters owned/created by Valve Studios, mentioned in this story. Again, any and all OC’s on this story are of my own creation.
> 
> Disclaimer #2:  
This is a sequel that has very little to do with Left 4 Dead.  
For the uninformed, this is the continuation of my first story, Acts of Mercy, which is a totally awesome story, honest, go read it and leave comments and kudos plz.  
For the informed, this is the long-awaited sequel that I've been working on for... awhile.  
I suppose I can say that I’ve been running on Valve time, but that’s no excuse.  
Anyways, it’s here. So sit back and enjoy the story that has (further) driven me to madness. Read it, comment, and keep watching.

**Savannah, Georgia: October 22, 2009**

The smell of burning city filled the air.

There were screams; the screams of timber falling, buildings crumbling, of metal twisting from the heat, bent into forms it was never intended to take. 

And there were screams of..._ other _ things, cries that drifted from the city and mixed with the smoke.

_ Certainly no humans _ , the soldier reflected, from his safe spot off the shore. _ They’d all been evac’d out, right? _

Only things on fire in there were buildings and monsters, he thought, their wailing rising to the sky with the ashes. 

_ Burn em’ all and scrub the world clean, _ he figured, _ do them and us both a favor. _

“They’re bombing the place after they torch it, you know,” said the soldier's companion, gazing over the flickering, orange-tinted sea. The first soldier shrugged. 

“Let ‘em.”

“Pity about the mall,” sighed the second soldier. “Heard Jimmy Gibbs Jr. was doing an appearance before the ‘flu hit.”

The first soldier shook his head. “Damn shame. You think he got out alright?”

“Eh, celebrities are always the first ones out,” the second man said, waving it away. “Heh. Probably hightailed out in that racecar of his.”

“Yeah.”

There was silence between them, and the sounds of fire, screams, and water hitting the sides of the boat filled the gap, for a time being.

Then:

“Y’know...”

“Yeah?”

“You think there might be... somebody in there? Still in Savannah, alive?”

There was a pregnant pause. 

“Nothin’ worth saving, Al.” The figure shook its head.

“Nothin’ worth saving.”

* * *

**?????, Ohio**

“Russ?”

“What is it, Skip?”

“Maybe we can take a shortcut.”

“_What _?”

“Y’know, off the beaten path.”

“No.”

“Look, I know it’s crazy, but… hear me out. It’s hitting dark. And the last thing we need is to trip over a Witch or something because we can’t damn well see what’s in front of us.”

“I know, but…”

‘C’mon, bro! We need to get to the safe house. It’s just an alley.”

“Don’t _ bro _me. I know perfectly goddamn well we need to get to a safe house. It’s just--”

“What?”

“Something about it… something in my gut tells me it’s not a good idea. We should stick to the plan.”

“Plan, schpam. We don’t have any time. And your gut? Really? What now, old man, are you getting holy revelations in that bean-stuffed stomach of yours?”

“Ok, _ old man _ is going a little far, it’s only five years between us!”

“Whatever, oldster. Let’s just take it as it comes. It’ll cut it in half, and Eve n’ Trav can’t go for much longer. We’ve kicked zombie ass before. It should be a no-brainer.”

“… Fine.”

“I knew you’d come to your senses!”

“...That back-slap wasn’t necessary.”

“Totally was. And you know what? If something jumps us, we’ll just fill it with lead. Watch out for each other, deal with whatever they throw at us…”  
‘We just need to be careful, Skip.”

“Russ, it’s an _ alley _, ferChrissakes. We’ll be out and in the safe room before ya know it!”

“If you say so...”

“It’ll be fine, What’s the worst that could happen?”

* * *

**????, ???, ????**

There was nothing but pain.

Blinding, burning, twisting, and even flowering, almost, if the thing feeling it could think poetically. But it was always _ there_.

It wasn’t sure where it was. Sometimes voices spoke over it, far-off, and sometimes to it, but it could only scream in response. 

It only huddled in the corner of the white room, while the voices spoke.

Sometimes they could come, with biting little sticks, putting things in its arms that only made it burn even more, holding square things and wearing white coats and always, always watching.

Some dim little part of its mind would spark, occasionally, somehow fighting back. And it would say, quietly, over the pain,

_ I didn’t sign up for this. _

_ BETRAYAL _

_ Why? _


	2. The Art of Not Knowing Anything

There are some weird stories out there, and there are _ weird _ stories out there.

Not not weird ain’t bad. Frankly, I prefer weird to the other paths of life. 

Take my dad, f’instance.

Most dads can be boring at best, embarrassing at worst. I think dad basically went the whole way and turned up all the knobs to 11. Dunno which knobs it was he turned up, whether they were labeled _ crazy _ , _ irrational _ , _ loving _ , maybe even _ embarrassing _, but, whatever they were, by God, he turned them up, all the way, until they snapped off and got stuck to the setting they were on, which was the Max.

Not that I minded. Like I said, I prefer weird to anything else. Building a nuclear fallout shelter in the middle of the Northern Maine woods, for the sake of building a fallout shelter in the middle of the Northern Maine woods, certainly doesn’t fit within the parameters of _ normal _, but who am I to complain? It ended up saving my life, more than once. (It wasn’t due to nuclear fallout, I’ll tell you that much).

And then there’s Denver, for that matter.

It’s not like his weirdness is defined by his name. Sure, _ Denver _ is a pretty damn odd thing to name a kid, but I’d like to think that whoever his parents were named him something more everyday and sensible, and less taken-from-the-torn-and-bloody-sweatshirt-he-was-wearing-at-the-time. Nope, the name _ Denver _ was fairly normal compared to the rest of it.

His tendency to chase ground squirrels (or anything small, squeaky, and susceptible to running in terror) was less _ weird _ and more _ unnerving _ . Mostly this was because he would _ actually catch them _.

Oh, sure, he’d be stealthy about it, and he didn’t scream when he pounced anymore (which does the nerves a favor) so he’d would get them nearly every time, and he could usually get at them quickly if they ran, even when they went down burrows.

He’d let them go afterwards, too, ‘cos he said that they left a bad taste in his mouth. He’d only really do it to burn excess energy, in any case, or else he bounced off the walls and drove me nuts. Really, though it was pretty odd to see him going after ‘em, I preferred him chasing squirrels, and not people. 

He’d still get nightmares from that, poor bastard. Sometimes he’d grow in his sleep, and I’d get a chill down my back and watch him, carefully, and wish fervently that the sunnuvabitches in the CEDA hadn’t taken my gun.

But then he’d wake up, and while he’d be terrified out of his mind, he’d still be sane, and not woken up as the monster he used to be. 

I highly doubt either one of us would like to repeat the time he woke up (sort of) and wasn't sane, but the past is the past, I suppose. He’s alright now, which I reckon is what counts.

Well, as sane as a former zombie could get. Chasing squirrels is just the tip of the iceberg. 

His claws, for another thing.

Gatling called them ‘keratin-enforced ossified fibrous appendages’ (whatever the hell _ that _ meant) but no matter what he called them, they weren't going anywhere. Den would sharpen them against trees, but they kept regenerating. Whatever the the hell Green Flu did to his system messed it up in ways only God knows.

Like how he could jump to the roof of a building, in one go, or how he could smell me opening an MRE from across the building, or the way he could make his way across a pitch-dark room without a flashlight.

Or the fact that he tried to kill me.

Twice. 

Granted, he’d been under the influence of a raging virus that that not only badly mutated his eyes and and legs and hands and nose, but his mind as well. And, also granted, I’d been trying to kill him at the same time. (Mostly because he was trying to kill me, but what’s a girl gonna do?)

Three times. I’m one over him on that, though the fact that I nearly succeeded the third time makes it all the more unsettling, to both me and him, but mostly me. 

That fact that _ he _nearly succeeded unnerves him (more than me, I think) as well. 

We both avoid the topic as much as possible. Imminent death at eachother’s hands doesn’t make for fantastic small talk, or any sort of talk for that matter. We’ve settled it, and we really prefer not to dig up any skeletons that probably need to stay buried. 

Call him a monster, if you want. I certainly would have, had you told me about him, just two months ago. Then I would’ve sent you to a mental hospital, because only a complete _ nut _could make up a story like that.

And yet here we are.

Is he a monster? By traditional conventions, certainly. Personally, I think that he’s a whole lot less monstrous than most men I’ve met, though sometimes I get the nagging doubts in my head.

You could ask me why on earth I could be friends with someone who nearly tore my internal organs out, or that I nearly shot in the head because of the aforementioned internal-organ tearing, or who I had to teach to tie his shoes because of a virus that ate his brain. (And half of the country, for that matter.)

And yet I am.

You could also wonder why he’d still stick around with _ me _, someone who taught him to drink from a cup , and who was the (technically indirect) reason for him getting his leg caught in a bear-trap. (Long story).

And yet he does.

Maybe ours is the weirdest story of them all.

But, again, it’s not like I have anything against weird.

* * *

Despite all the weirdness. the past month’d been oddly...normal.

Filled with burning resentment, yes, and revenge-plotting, and some more resentment, and soul-crushing boredom when the resentment ran out, but filled with normality.

As normal as being a guinea pig/blood bank/backup/research subject for the government can be.

We spent most of our time reading whatever they throw at us (mostly army propaganda, but I’d take anything at this point) and spying on the whitecoats. They’d pretty much put us in entire barracks of an off-use military base (Now being repurposed as a research facility/prison/what was probably closest to _ home sweet home _ in a 50 mile radius). 

The resentment part comes mostly from the guinea pig part, since the only reason they’re keeping me around at this point is because of some antibody related crap that’s currently running through my veins. Why the hell they haven’t found another person in the goddamn country that’s immune to the ‘flu at this point is beyond me, but apparently carriers aren’t good for anything but spreading the disease around, so the whole reason the world hasn’t gone to hell (yet) is because of my life juices.

Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.

And of course, they can’t have me going around and spilling/misplacing/generally not being there to donate said life juices, so, here I am, in Middle of Nowhere, Arizona, transferred from Middle of Nowhere, Canada, after being transported from Bear Cave, Middle of Nowhere, Maine. 

(Long story. Go read it.)

At this point, nowhere sounds like a place to go.

I suppose I should be thankful for the security, being in a nice facility with (fairly) livable cots and running water and slightly fresher MRE’s than I’m used to, as opposed to being torn apart by zombies. (Or pummeled, or strangled, or burned in acid… did I mentioned how fucked up the Green flu is?) ‘_ May you have interesting times _’ is a curse, after all.

Still, it’d be nicer to have normality on my own accounts.

Though it wasn’t that much of a change of state. Just a month ago, I was counting MRE’s and assuming anarchy was ruling the country. Now, it’s more or less the same thing, but with them drawing blood from me at regular intervals (Again: Whoop-dee-fucking-doo) and fewer MRE’S.

Anyways, here we are now, sitting in what was formerly a common room in the barracks, on a couch that isn’t so much Hideous or Floral, and more a Nauseating Army Green. Denver is napping in his own, weird way (which is to say, curled up like a dog. Don’t ask. I don’t know why, and neither does he). and I’m re-reading the _ Green Beret Survival Manual _ for the umpteenth time. I’ve practically memorized the entire thing since I first read it at the age of 7, but, hey, gotta go back to old favorites. right? I’d tried to read it to Denver, but he rather felt more like a power nap at the time. 

Apparently his ridiculous metabolism (4,000 calories a day, or something stupid) was because he:

  1. Could heal a broken leg in a couple of weeks (apparently because of ‘accelerated cellular replication, enhanced telomere length’ blah, blah)
  2. Could leap a building in a single bound (Well, if it was a _short. _ And if he wasn’t too tired.)
  3. Kept a temperature of about 103°F and a pulse of 120 (Which gave the doctors a damn good scare the first time they took his readings)
  4. Ate like and slept like a bear. A starving, narcoleptic bear.

Which is to say, maybe times _ were _ interesting enough with him around.

Now he was waking up (surprising, I know) and stretching, like a cat (Again, don’t ask. Even Gatling’s baffled, and Gatling is seldom baffled).

He still kept his hood up, which he claimed was because it kept the sun out of his eyes, but I think he did it out of habit, and keep people from staring. Who can blame him? Every sonuvabitch whitecoat that sees him, first thing they gawk at are his eye scars. They are pretty damn impressive, but you’d think that someone’d get tired of people asking. 

Anyways, he was up and at it, blinking muzzily and glancing around the room, I suppose to make sure it was still the same room as when he went to sleep. (Which, again, you can’t blame him for. Let’s just say waking up in the same room as we went to sleep in is a pleasant surprise nowadays).

“Mornin’, lazy bones,” I said, while I halfheartedly skimmed the section on smoke signals. “You’ve been out a good two hours.”

He shook his head. “Only two? Wish it was longer.”

I glanced up. “Bored?”

“Just hate this place,” He said, flopping back on the couch. “Maybe if I sleep more--”

“We’re here shorter?” I finished for him. He nodded.

I grimaced. “Hate to pick apart your logic, but I’m having my doubts on whether they're _ ever _gonna let us go.”

He heaved a sigh. “I’m just sick of it. Sitting around, chasing squirrels, waiting for something to happen--”

I shrugged, trying to hide the same resentment I held. “You did that at The Cabin, too.”

“Yeah, but at least I was there because I wanted to.” He paused.

“And because there wasn’t anywhere else to go.” He added, quietly.

“Not like there’s anywhere else for us to go around here, either.” I said, gesturing around the room. “Nothin’ but desert around us, and unless we manage to hijack a chopper, burn the place down, and fly our asses out of here, it looks like we’re stayin’.”

He seemed to ponder this for a moment.

“Well, maybe if we--”

I shook my head. “Prospect’s tempting, I know, but security’s too tight around ‘em. I wouldn’t risk it.”

He sighed again. “We can’t fly one, anyway.”

I smirked. “_ You _ can’t. _ I _ can.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” I paused, thoughtfully. “Dad believed in a..._ well rounded _ education.”

“Well rounded?”

“Covering all aspects.” I defined for him. Den’s vocab had increased exponentially over the past several weeks, though he still had a few fuzzy spots here and there.

“Well rounded as I am though, ain’t gonna do us much good,” I sighed. “It’s not like we have anywhere else to go, even if we got past the desert.”

“Back to the Cabin? He asked, hopefully. 

I shook my head again. “No can do. It’s under custody, remember?”

“Oh. Yeah.” He looked crestfallen then, which depressed me even more. 

“Suppose this ain’t _ too _ terrible,” I reflected. “They leave us alone, and it’s either this or zombie territory.”

“Zombie territory can’t be that bad.”

“Considering the state you were in when I found you? I doubt it.”

“We could survive.”

“We could.” I said mulling it over. “Question is, what’s worse? Zombies, or whitecoats?” 

“Well, they get mad when I attack the whitecoats.”

I snorted. “True. That, and zombies don’t go on rants about government funding.”

He shrugged. “Maybe we can try and go Westside--”

“I doubt it.” I cut in. “Even if we manage to escape, they’ve got CEDA posts all over the borders, now that they’ve managed to get their act together. Even if we stay out of their sight, we can’t mingle with society, not with _ those _ on your hands.” I said, gesturing to his claws.

He gaze darkened, and he looked down. A pang of guilt stabbed at my chest.

“Look-” I said, biting my lip as I tried to phrase it.

“We can’t go and live with normal people, not until we’ve built up some sort of trust. You’re as human as they come, trust me, but…” I paused again.  
“People won’t stop and think that. If they find out what you are, exactly, well, the reception ain’t gonna be real friendly. Old hate dies hard, and fear runs deep. They won’t stop and think. They’ll just act. That's what I did, and I can’t blame ‘em for doing the same.” I swallowed.

“But if anything happened to you, I’d never be able to forgive myself.”

He seemed to mull over it for a moment. “Yeah.” He said, finally. His voice was heavy, almost resigned. “You think we’ll ever get out of here?”

I stared past him, at the wall, not willing to speculate the possibilities. 

“I don’t know.”

* * *

I scare myself. 

Sometimes I’m running. Chasing something small and squeaky, because my legs itch and it only goes away when I chase. Sometimes I’m sleeping, or Mar is reading something to be, and then the noises in my head come back. 

The smell of blood. Screaming, Yelling. Falling. Hurt. Burning.

Then I wake up feeling hot and smelling salty, and I don’t know here I am or who I am or _ what _ I am, and I have to think to know that I am Denver, I am _ here _, and not there, where I was, and I will never hurt anyone again. 

And my head hurts and sometimes my hands hurt, and my eyes sting, and I wait for it to go away, and go back to sleep or chasing things or listening to Marcy, until the noises come back again.

Sometimes it isn’t yelling or screaming, but nice noises, noises that I know but I don’t really.

<strike> Den, I’m home </strike>

And even though they’re nice noises, they make me even more sad. But I don’t hear them very much. Just every now and then.

And sometimes my head will be quiet, and I like that the most, because then it doesn’t hurt, and I know I am me, and nothing else tells me that I’m not.


	3. Rooftop Thoughts

  1. ** Rooftop Thoughts**

Jump.

Roll.

Jump again.

Good place here. For seeing and smelling. Lots of smells. Smoke, blood, sick…

High up. High up is good.

Smelly sick ones are wandering around. Down low. Very stupid. Run at prey. Get killed by prey. Killed with smoke-things.

Wait. Wait up high. Smell prey. Watch prey. Wait. For when prey isn’t looking. Don’t get killed by prey.

I kill the prey.

Some coming now. 3 of them. Smelly-stupids run and yell at them. Prey hits them with the smoke things.

One is away from the others. Being pulled by rope-thing from Sick-Smoke one. Other prey is being run at by Stupid-Smelly-Ones. Can’t help the other one.

Growl.

_ Now. _

Jump.

Scream.

Air making rush-noise when I pounce. Makes my face cold. Claws out. 

Land.

Cracking sound when I hit prey. Rope-thing isn’t dragging anymore.

_ Mine. _

_ Rip. _

_ Tear.  _

_ Claw. _

_ Bite. _

<strike> Oh God! Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff </strike>

<strike> _ KILL _ </strike>

* * *

I wake up.

All of me feels cold. Sweating, but I’m not hot. I shake.

I can still hear the screams.

I can still remember the smells…

Breathe. Hard. My chest goes thunk-thunk-thunk, like it does when I run or jump for a long time, but I wasn’t running or jumping.

Well, I don’t think I was.

I roll off the bed. 

It’s dark, but I can see. Marcy is sleeping, and I don’t want to wake her up.

I go outside. The air is cold, and dark. Veryverydark. Lots of  little dots stars in the sky. Marcy says it’s because there isn’t any light to block them out. There were lots of them at The Cabin, too, but they looked different.

Jump. The I’m on the roof.

Noises. Little noises. The ones that are always in my head. Too quiet for me to hear. Some of them are louder than others, and they are the ones that make me sick.

Breathe deep again. Lay back. The roof feels cold. Stop the noises. Make my chest quiet down, make the sick go away.

I watch the stars, and sometimes I think I see them move, very, very slowly.

I hear the door slam open and shut. Then a  _ tk-tk-tk-tk _ on the wall, since Marcy needs a ladder, and she sits down next to me.

"You really need to quit havin' the midnight terrors, man. It ain't healthy for a body to be up this damn early."

She says it like she's mad, but she isn't. I know she's worried. I can hear it and smell it a little, too, under the sleepiness.

"What did they have this time?"

I shrug. "Same things. Screams. All the smells. Stuff I don't want to remember."

"Your head doesn't seem to be getting the memo."

"Hm."

"Anything... useful?"

I shake my head. "No. "

"Damn," she says, quietly. She turns over and looks at me. "Ya wanna talk it out, or anythin' ?"

I shrug. "Nah."

I know I'm lying, because after we sit and look at the stars and all the desert and the base for a while, I start to ask what I've been thinking for a long time.

"Am I---"

"No."

I turn back to her. “You really think?”

She sighs. “I can see it in your face. You’re not a monster, if you want full reassurances.”

“Really?”

She looks at me, a little annoyed. “Would I lie to you about this sorta shit?”

I think for a little. “Maybe.” 

She punches me in the arm, hard, and it makes my breath go _oof, _but she doesn’t smell mad. “Wrong in one.”

“Why?” I ask, my head and my arm burning together, now.

“Why what?”

“ _ I’ve killed people, Marcy, _ ” I say, looking straight at her. Her face doesn’t change, but I can smell the sad off of her. “I know I did. You said I had blood on me when you found me. I don’t think it was all mine. I remember…”  _ Ripping, screaming, taste of blood, the hunt….  _ “I remember it. And I almost...”

_ I almost killed you. _

She nods. “I’m well aware.”

“But doesn’t it mean that--”

“What did I tell you earlier?”

Her voice is hard, and so are her eyes. “I don’t particularly like to repeat myself.”

Then she sighs, and some of the hardness goes away. “Look, angstin’ over it ain't gonna change what happened. You can only change what you do in the future.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep.”

“Right,” I say. “I’m never killing, ever again.”  _ I won’t make the same mistakes, cause the same pain-- _

“Bad idea.”

“Huh?”

She shakes her head, and smells a little confused. “What’s the quote Whit told me-- ‘Only the devil deals in absolutes.’ Yeah, somethin’ like that. Point is, going hard the other way ain’t gonna fix anythin’, either. You never know what’s gonna happen, who you’ll have to defend… sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do.”

I stay quiet, thinking.  _ Like the bear, but what if I lose control? What if I do something stupid?  _

“Y’know, I killed a guy before I met ya?”

“Yeah?”

She sighs. “Just an infected. Came stumblin’ at me, arm just bit, turned not three minutes later.” She looks off at the sky, and I don’t know what she’s thinking.

“His name was Max.” _ _

Then she turns back to me. “I was thinking bright n’ clear, Denver. I did what I had to do. He could’ve been an asshole, he could’ve had a family. I don’t know...” She shrugs. “I bet his corpse is rotting away in the gas station I shot him in. People shouldn’t have to die that way. Shot through the head in a goddamn gas station…

“But it’s what happened. I couldn’t have prevented it, not without killin’ someone else, me included. It is how it is, and I don’t let it keep me up at night.” She smirks. “Well, unless there’s someone else doing the favor.”

“Sorry.”

“ ‘s OK.” She says. “You’ve been through some shit. I reckon you get a free pass.”

“Yeah.” I paused. “But you don’t think it makes me bad?”

“ ‘A man is defined by his own decisions,’ “ she says. “Dad used to tell me that, all the time. Your intentions don’t mean shit, it all boils down to what you do of your own volition. Er, free will.” She says when she sees my face.

“What I mean to say is, you’re only a monster if you decide to be one. The Green Flu… it took that out of your hands. You weren’t thinking straight, and it isn’t your fault that you got infected. All you can do now is move forward.”

“And not kill people?”

“Just…” she stops and thinks. “Use your common sense. I know you have some bangin’ around in there somewhere.”

“You think?” 

“Yeah.” she says, nodding. “You do.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” she says, swinging her feet off the roof.

“Just try and get some damn sleep, hey?”

* * *

The whitecoats seemed…  _ agitated  _ the next day.

They were always around the base during the day, it being a research lab, but they didn’t really interact with Denver or me that much. Most of the time, their attitude seemed to veer from general disinterest to fascinated terror, like we were some sort of horribly deadly, incredibly rare, recently-discovered species of pit scorpion.

This was fairly close to the truth, so this suited me just fine. Any day when the whitecoats leave us be is a good day in my book.

They were pretty damn annoying, I’ll tell ya, never answering any questions. On any other given day they’d either give some science-shit explanation that I couldn't follow, or just drop a dismissive comment. Today, however, they seemed to be deliberately avoiding us, which was a fairly nice break from them taking blood samples all the time, if a little disconcerting,

“There’s somethin’ going on,” I muttered, watching them skitter around from our spot on the roof. Besides being a good place for angst-pep-talk time, it made a convenient vantage spot for watching people.

Denver shrugged. “They keep whispering at each other. I can’t get close enough to hear, but they smell… scared. Confused.”

“That ain’t good,” I said, mostly to myself. “I’m in good mind to throw a tomato at ‘em.”

“I could jump one of them.” Denver offered, grinning evilly. I smirked. 

“Temping, but you know what happened  _ last _ time you did that.”

“It was fun to hear them scream.”

“Y’know, for all the regret n’ crap you claim to have, I could swear you still a streak of zombie in ya.”

“Whitecoats don’t count. You said it yourself. They don't treat _ us _ like people, anyways.”

“True,” I said. “They don’t.” I sighed. “Save it for Gatling, in any case.”

“He hasn’t been around for awhile,” Den said, eyeing the scientists warily.

“Which is what worries me,” I said, following his gaze.

“I thought you didn’t like him.”

“Still don’t.” I said. “But at least he was a constant, when he was still around. Something’s going on if the leader of the joint just vanishes into thin air. ‘Sides,” I glanced over, “I thought  _ you  _ were the one that said he ‘smelled trustworthy.’” I teased.

“He didn’t kill me. And the nose doesn’t lie.” Denver replied, simply.

“He didn’t kill you because you were an ‘object of scientific interest’. Besides, who am I to trust the olfactory senses of someone who’s medically brain-damaged?”

“Hey!”

“I’m kidding.” I laughed. Denver  _ hmphed _ and crossed his arms, grumpily.

“Nose or not, I still don’t trust him.” I said, tone serious again. “Like Uncle Whit used to say, somethin’ here is going catawampus.”

“You keep talking about your uncle Whit,” Denver said, cutting off my train of thought. “What happened to him? Were you close?”

I sucked at my teeth, trying to word the answer. “Fairly,” I said, to start. “He was my dad’s older brother, really the only other relative I knew. Grew up and lived in Georgia, the both of them, and me, till Dad moved up North to live closer to the cabin. Even after we moved, they were still pretty close. We used to go to Savannah every Thanksgiving, talk about weaponry and all that. He’d let me handle the guns from his store, even shoot some of ‘em.” I smiled at the memory; my first sniper rifle, learning how to mount a laser sight, packing magazines on an M16 Carbine automatic... ah, good times. “I fired my first gun ever on his range. It was a .22 Browning A-Bolt. Manual. I managed to jam it the first time, but good ol’ Whit helped me fix it.”

“What happened?” Denver asked, breaking my train of thought. “You said you used to go to Savannah.”

I sighed. “It was when I was, I dunno, 12?” I shook my head, sadly. “Dad and Whitaker... got into an argument. Dad said lighting out to the North was a better idea during the nuclear apocalypse, but Whitaker said that stayin’ home and holing up was the way to go. Told Dad that his obsession with the Cabin was ‘unhealthy’… they were rantin’ for  _ hours _ .” I shuddered at the memory, me waiting on the stairs next to the kitchen, while the two of them shouted…

“Long story short, Dad broke off all ties, and never spoke to Whitaker again. After he died, I didn’t really keep up contact, so who knows? I know the flu’s hit Georgia, but Whit’s tough enough, he mighta survived…”

“Wait, wait,” Denver cut in. “Your dad refused to talk your uncle for years over an argument on  _ survival strategy _ ?”

I nodded. “Yep. Big issue for them. Really, Dad thought Whitaker was crazy for wanting to stay and wait it out, though sometimes I wonder…”

* * *

Later on, it was just us in our cots in the old barracks, and all the whitecoats had shut up and gone home for the day.

“I hope Gatling gets back soon,” I said, idly looking up at the ceiling, as I tried to fall asleep. “Longer he’s gone, the longer we’re here.”

“Do you think we’ll be here forever?” I heard, from the next cot over.

I shrugged. “Who knows? We stay here as long as Gatling wants us to.”  _ Which may damn well be forever _ , I added, if only in my head.

“Maybe we  _ should _ burn the place down, like you said,” Denver mused. I let out a short laugh. 

“Maybe. I’m not sure if the place is flammable enough, in any case. I’d need an incendiary grenade, or a flamethrower and a hella lotta gas. In any case, they haven’t dissected you or anything, so I suppose we can count our blessings.” 

“Yeah, but they keep poking you with needles.”

“Needles ain’t the worst of it. The fact they run you down with ‘strength tests’ or whatever the hell they call legal torture nowadays makes my blood boil.”

“It isn’t needles.”

“It isn’t  _ right _ , either,” I snapped, stopping short of shouting. “Let’s let it rest, for now. We’ll discuss escape plans tomorrow.”

“Alright. Good night.”

“G’nite.” I said, flicking off the light.

And that was the last night either of us slept peacefully for a very long time. 


	4. Wake Up Call

_ “TAAAAAAAAANK!!!” _

Prey is making loud noises. Big-thing hunting them. Throwing things at prey. 

Watch. From high-up. Don’t hunt now. Wait. Don’t get killed by big-thing. 

Big-things bad. Veryvery bad.

_ “Shitbucket! get the molotov!” _

Big-thing smells different now. Like smoke. Burn. Making big noises. Chasing prey. 

Prey is shooting with fire-things…

<strike> KILL IT </strike>

There’s a different smell in my nose.

It’s familiar…

<strike> Are you awake? </strike>

_ Like the hospital  _

Light. Cold feeling on my face. I’m not dreaming anymore.

I feel… fuzzy. Tired. There’s black in my head, and these little white things flying around in my eyes…

Noises. There’s noises going on. Why can’t I see? It’s too loud to be the barracks, the smells are all wrong…

_ “ _ D’ya think it was enough knock-out stuff we used?”

“We gave it the normal amount. It’s fuckin’ horse tranquilizer, and it’s been asleep the entire time.”

There’s a  _ chak-chak-chak-chak-chak  _ noises, too. I’ve heard it before. At the base, but far away, and…

<strike> _ This is Chopper 13-E, reporting from ------, heading to North Base CE-104 _ </strike>

“Good thing we knocked it out easy, right?”

“Caldwell said to get ‘em while they’re sleeping. No fight, no mess, no clean up. Easy done.”

I can see a little bit more.

It’s a metal place.  <strike> I’ve been here before.  </strike>

I can’t feel my arms. There’s something holding them down...black things. 

I can see two shapes, all blurry and green-brown looking, close by, but I can’t smell them, and I don’t think they know I’m awake. 

_ Where’s Marcy? _

I can’t smell her, or hear her. I don’t think she’s close.

_ I have to get out. _

There’s more things on my chest. Straps. Holding me down.

They’re near my teeth.

<strike> BITE </strike>

* * *

You know what sucks ass? Waking up and not knowing where the hell you are.

Usually, you get after you’re drunk, (so I’m told) after moving to a new place, or just plain after a deep sleep. 

Though sometimes, it’s because the government’s kidnapped and transported you to a research facility in Canada. (Long story. If you ain’t read it by now, shame on you.)

So, needless to say, when I woke up in a white room with pointedly non-celestial lights shining down on me, ( _ again _ ) I was pretty damn pissed. This shit was getting old, real fast.

I was awake in seconds, taking in my surroundings. First thing that hit me: It definitely wasn’t a hospital. It was bright, glaringly white, and sterile-smelling, but it had no furnishings other than the cot I was lying on, and (weirdly enough) a large mirror taking up the entirety of one wall.

There wasn’t anyone else there, either, but I spoke what was on my mind, anyways.

“Cut the shit, Gatling,” I said, calling out to the emptiness. “Where the fuck d’ja stick us  _ this _ time? Does my snot actually cure cancer? Or is it my earwax? Quit hidin’, I know you’re behind a corner somewhere, and any minutes you’re gonna come out and dump some scientific explanation or whatever on me. I get it. So stop the mysterious crap and get your ass out here.”  _ _

“Your vulgarity is commendable, Miss Walker,” a voice that was most certainly not Gatling’s said, coming from nowhere and echoing around the room, “However, it is not within your ability, or position, to make such a request.”

It sounded like something Gatling would say, sure (which is to say, smug and instantly infuriating) but it sounded more Midwestern than Californian. And... _ steelier, _ somehow. Calmer. Colder.

I tried hefting myself off the cot, and nearly regretted it. My legs crumpled underneath me, and -- _ too late _ \-- I realized that my lagging sense of tiredness was not from fatigue, but from knockout drugs.

_ Shit. _

I turned, silently cursing, and directed my attention to the mirror. 

Mirrors are seldom there for no reason, and I had a feeling that I wasn’t in an evil beauty salon.

“Right, then, Mr. Whoever-The-Fuck-You-Are,” I said, venomously. “Do me a favor and show me your pretty, pretty face. I know it’s a one-way glass, so quit dicking around.”

My head was buzzing, though it didn’t know if it was from the anger, or the drugs, or from the quickly-rising fear in my chest that I was trying to hide.

The speaker didn’t say anything, but I heard a faint  _ click _ , and I could see through the glass of the mirror like a window. 

There was a man standing there, but it sure as hell wasn’t Gatling. This one was wearing a full-out military uniform. He had a General’s insignia (Dad made me memorize ‘em all) and his graying hair set in a buzzcut. He looked down at me, crumpled on the floor, his eyes steely.

“I am General Trafford Caldwell, Miss Walker, and I have been placed in charge of this research facility, and of the CEDA’s vaccine project.” His tone was icy, like he was releasing this information reluctantly.

“Fine,” I said, “How do you do. Now where the fuck am I, and where the hell is Gatling?”

My cussing, sadly, didn’t faze him, though I doubted it would do much in the first place. He merely raised an eyebrow.

“Director Gatling is currently standing trial for wartime crimes, perpetrated by his incompetence in managing the CEDA, and in mishandling of the Green Flu Outbreak. I am taking over operations of this facility, and the organization, on behalf of the military.”

_ Ah, fuck.  _ Wasn't this turning out to be a pretty little shitstorm? 

I hated Gatling, If he were on fire and all I had was a jar of piss on me, hell,  _ I’d drink it _ . But if there’s one thing I could be reassured about while he was around, it’s that there wasn’t anyone worse to take his place. True, he was an ass, but not this level of ass as this looked like it was turning out to be.

“Right,” I said, carefully, my increasing panic becoming harder and harder not to show.  _ _

“So if Gatling’s gone, where am I? What do you want from me?”

“I won’t divulge our exact location, Miss Walker.” Caldwell replied, icily, “As I have mentioned before, you are in a military-sanctioned facility, for the purpose of your protection and aiding the war effort with ,our biological, ah,  _ assets _ .” 

_ Damnit. Not this shit again. _

“So you want me for my blood. Again.” This elicited no response.

Then a thought struck me, and made my panic levels rise even higher.

“Where’s Denver?” I asked, quietly, and dreading the answer.

“ _ Subject 1-CB _ ” he said, insistently, “Is not your concern.”

I won’t list the string of insults, curses, and general blasphemies that flew through my mind right then, ‘cos I’d fill a book that would probably be banned in eight different countries. I tried standing again, managing to stay up and walk over (albeit, in a wobbly fashion) to the glass. Even then, I had to lean against the wall for support.

I looked into those stupid, steely, smug eyes of his, and gave him a red-eyed glare that told him to go to hell.

“You tell me,” I said, barely keeping my anger from boiling over, “where Denver is, you son of a bitch, or I will personally smash this window, shoot you through the eyes, and burn this fucking place down.”

He simply sighed, his concrete expression never changing. 

“Fine. If you insist, Miss Walker, Subject 1-C is being transported to a separate research facility.”

That cut it.

“You let me out of this shit-hole this instant.” I said ignoring the burning, drugged feeling in my legs, and the fact that what I was doing was probably useless. “Or the walls are gonna be painted with blood.”

“The barrier is enforced plexiglass, Miss Walker,” he replied, tapping it with his fist. “I highly doubt you could breach it, let alone harm me. And, as much as you want to, I cannot, and will not, let you leave, for both your safety and mine. You are, in fact, of too much value to the military to allow for harm or escape. Though the former Director may have been more...lax in his protocol, as long as I am in charge of this operation, I cannot allow for it to happen.”

He stared back at me, furious red-eyed glare meeting his concrete gaze, and then he turned, heading left to God-knows where.

“Progress is progress, Miss Walker.”

And then he was gone.

* * *

The straps taste horrible. Bitter, chemical, and a little bit like sick and blood.

I still bite. Tear through it with my teeth, it makes little _ zzzp-zzp-zzp _ noises when I bite it through, and still biting when my teeth and jaw and neck hurt,

I’m almost free. The top strap feels looser every time I pull...

_ Snap.  _

I arms are out. I can sit up a little, but my legs and hands are still trapped. But if I pull them free…

“Hey!”

One of the shapes is coming closer. I can see a little more now. It’s a solider, like the ones near the base.

This one doesn’t look happy.

He’s holding a gun, and it’s pointed at me.

“Don’t move,” he says. I want to growl, and scare him, but I don’t.  _ Scared men shoot.  _

“Everything alright back there, Mike?” says another voice, far away, in front of me.

“It’s under control, Benny,” I hear another voice say.

“Good,” says the faraway voice. “We’re gonna hit some turbulence ahead, so brace yourselves.”

“Shit,” says the soldier with the gun. “Jim, strap it down again. I’ll watch it.”

“I’m not taking a fucking step near that thing if it’s awake,” says Jim. I can smell a little more, now, and I know Jim is scared. “I’ve seen people ripped apart in front of my eyes by things like… _ that. _ ”

“I gave you a fucking order, Jim,” says Mike, who smells angry, but scared, too, under the angry.

Jim doesn’t say anything.

“Look, it’s under control,” Mike says, and he hits my head with the gun, to I see little things flying around in front of my eyes, and it burns where he hit me. “Do your damn job.”

“Yessir,” says Jim, and he starts doing something with the straps. 

I lie still. The gun is veryvery close.

Then, the metal place starts shaking.

“Shit!” Yells Mike, and he falls down. Jim is still up, but he’s stopped doing the strap thing, and is holding on to the thing I’m lying on.

_ Move. _

I pull my hands free. The straps on my legs are still there, but I cut them with my claws. The shaking scares me, but I have to keep going.

_ Run. _

“Mike! Mike, IT GOT OUT---”

He smells ververyscared now.

Growl.

Time to go.


End file.
